Pete Wedderburn

Pete Wedderburn qualified as a vet twenty-five years ago, and now spends half his working life writing newspaper columns. He lives in Ireland with his wife, two daughters and a menagerie of dogs, cats, poultry and other furry and feathered companions. Pete answers readers' queries about their pets' health in his video Q&A – he is also on Twitter as @petethevet and has a Facebook Fan Page.

Weird pets: what's the appeal?

Every few months it seems that another pet-keeping fad comes along: it was micro-pigs last time, and now it's maxi-Guinea Pigs. The photographs of a Capybara – a massive South American rodent – being kept as a pet in Texas are bound to spark an interest for keeping the beasts in other parts of the world. Hopefully pet owners in the UK will be sensible enough to stay away from such excesses: after the initial novelty passes, the sheer size of the creature means that there are guaranteed to be complications that are not mentioned in the press coverage. Can you imagine what his food bill is? And if you've ever had to clean out a Guinea Pig hutch, multiply the quantity of droppings by fifty to get an idea of the work involved with mucking him out.

It's certainly possible to keep a remarkable range of animals as pets, but the motivation for weirder, cuter, more exotic pets has to be questioned. What's the appeal? If folk are honest with themselves, it's got a lot to do with the reflected glory gained as people crowd around the prize beast.

The recent Bateson Dog Breeding report stressed the need to educate the public about buying puppies – choosing the right type of health-screened animal from a well-socialised, non-puppy-farm source. The same principle applies to all other pets. You may not be able to ban people from owning strange creatures, but you can educate them about the potential complications.

Charities like the Blue Cross and the RSPCA devote significant resources to public education. Responsible pet shops can also make a big difference, selling only those creatures that can be kept easily and well as pets, and training their staff to ensure that new owners are well briefed on the details of pet ownership.

The Pets at Home chain – which has over 240 stores around the country – has taken their responsibility for the pets that they sell a stage further. They run an in-store charity called Support Adoption For Pets which works in a simple way. If someone has a guinea pig, rabbit or other small furry pet that they feel that they can no longer look after, they're encouraged to hand the animal in to a Pets at Home store. The animal is checked over to ensure it's healthy, then it's put on display to be handed out to a customer, free of charge, for "long term adoption". The new "owner" makes a donation to the charity, and these funds are then redistributed to animal charities across the country. Sales of small furry pets in the stores have obviously reduced, with customers choosing to adopt rather than buying a new animal, but perhaps the ongoing sales of pet food for adopted animals, and the general sense of good will generated by the scheme are enough to compensate.

The scheme only applies to the species of animals sold at Pets at Home, so it's not open to anyone wanting to move on micro-pigs or maxi-rodents (or other oddities) that have fallen out of favour. Yet another reason to stay away from novelty pets…..